Of course, the classic style of leadership is that someone high up in a business structure makes the decisions and the people below simply follow them. Rather than managing for results, a servant leader focuses on creating an environment in which their team can thrive and get their highest-impact work done. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessionsThe leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. This can create positive results at any level. Premodern concepts of servant leadership stretch all the way back to ancient Chinese writings and early Christianity, during which time it was believed that to be a leader, one must be a servant first.13 The modern concept of servant leadership, which is more germane to this discussion, was developed by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970.4,5 Greenleaf spent his career working at AT&T as their head of management research. The importance of taking time off for leaders, Mistakes leaders can avoid when giving feedback to employees, How leaders can create high-performing teams. In clinical practice perhaps the why is obvious and straightforward. There were more and more nights where hefound himself sitting alone in the office at 10 pm. Hence, servant leadership can be difficult to scale in larger organizations. This is true for democratic leadership or autocratic leadership. Getting the best out of your team requires using a variety of management styles. Formal authority may be lost: Because servant leaders get down on such a personal level with their teams, their formal authority is easily lost. Leaders of those departments must take the initiative to focus on servant leadership. Phone, (800) 899-1712 or (949) 362-2050 (ext 532); fax, (949) 362-2049; e-mail, reprints@aacn.org. Writing about leadership agility in a VUCA world. Individuals that dont have the courage or confidence for data-driven decision making on their own yet may feel discouraged and lost in a work environment that provides them with this much executive power. Definitely not. She is the epitome of the self-sacrificing qualities a servant leader needs. This is a BETA experience. A transformational leader does care about each team member. Over the decades, Lewin's original leadership styles have evolved into many styles of leadership in health care, such as passive-avoidant, transactional, transformational, servant, resonant, and authentic (Northhouse, 2004; Specchia et al., 2021). Example: When a team member comes to you with a problem, listen to them and make them feel heard. The issue here is to reconcile a leadership position with the concept of not necessarily knowing, understanding, or having all the answers. Employees in a servant leadership environment are more likely to feel that their voices are heard. Go to our main article with more than 25 different leadership styles explained. It takes time. Remember that it should come from a genuine place; people can detect fake and inauthentic servant leaders. And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Notsurprisingly, he started to feel unappreciated, resentful and lose his sense of joy in building the company.